


Prodigal

by ColdFront



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Conflicted Yang, Eventual Ruby/Yang, F/F, Half-Sibling Incest, Morally Ambiguous Character, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2020-08-19 10:36:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20208349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColdFront/pseuds/ColdFront
Summary: As Ruby flees through Vacuo after doing something terrible at Shade Academy, she's hunted down by her long-lost sister, Yang of the Branwen Tribe. Yang has never failed one of her mother's missions before - but this time, it's complicated.





	1. Prologue (Ruby)

_I never wanted any of this to happen._

I had thought I wanted to be a huntress. I had thought I would be protecting people. I had thought I'd be like Mom, and like Uncle Qrow. I had thought my team would be my friends for life. I had thought I would get a fairy-tale ending, with strength and adventure and love.

_Why wouldn't he just leave me alone?_

Slate's body was crumpled, and his beautiful blue armor was stained crimson. He looked even paler than usual, and his face was twisted in pain and surprise. His blood pooled on the obsidian that Shade Academy is built from, and the splintered moon was reflected pink within it. His right hand still gripped his family's ancestral halberd, but the weapon's edge was stained with my vomit.

_I didn't mean to kill him..._

I knew it was cold out, but I didn't really feel it. I absently folded up Crescent Rose, the weapon I had been so proud of two short years before, and clipped it to the magnetic latch on my back. I could barely stand to look at it. Normally feeling its weight was a comfort, but now it was disconcerting.

_I can't stay here._


	2. Thicker Than Water (Yang)

_I'm going to have to buy a new jacket._

Dr. Modra was cutting away bits of fabric and leather that had gotten mixed up in my side, along with dried blood and fine black dust. It wasn't pretty - the faunus's sword had been right on target, and if I had been a little slower, I would have been cut in half. Instead it was just a deep scratch. "You know," Modra finally said with more than a hint of reproach, "I'm not going to say no to your lien, but you really ought to start thinking about a safer line of work. Maybe sell life insurance." That got a half-dead chuckle from me.

"Maybe you're right, Doc."

He pulled another strip of blood-stained fabric from the wound, and dumped it in a hazmat container. "I guess all I'm saying is that your internal organs work. Maybe you ought to keep 'em that way."

I didn't feel like arguing at the moment. The adrenaline had been wearing down, the painkillers were ramping up, and I was starting to feel dizzy and off-center. One hour before, I had been in a mine adit, in almost pitch darkness, in a fight to the death, and now I was in a pristine clinic with photos of plants on the wall, being lectured about the myriad advantages of not being cut in half.

Just as it seemed like Modra was about to start up again, the door opened. My usual Vacuo government contact walked in, a guy named Nikola Berde. He was a slimy little weasel, and under normal circumstances I wouldn't have bothered giving him the time of day - but he had always paid well. Someone I didn't know - an older man with a few remaining streaks of red in his greying hair - followed him in, but stayed by the door. Modra spared them only a brief glance, and began suturing up my wound.

"Is he dead?" Berde said by way of a greeting.

"Yeah." I glanced down at my hands, seeing dirt, calluses, and a hint of dried blood. Adam Taurus wasn't the first person I had killed, but I couldn't work up enthusiasm for the job the way this bastard could. "You'll find his body in the Nomad mine. Adit #5." The image of Taurus's face as he died, marked with rage and shock, filled my mind for a moment, and I closed my eyes and forced myself to think of home.

Berde grinned, and turned to the other guy. "See?" The older man just grunted, but he was paying attention now. I found his stare a little unsettling. "The Kingdom of Vacuo is grateful for your assistance in this matter," Berde said. "We will pay the posted bounty of one hundred thousand lien - half to you, half to your mother. We're also adding in another ten thousand as... ah... a performance bonus. We have another job for you."

I sighed. Here I was, getting my side sewn up by a preachy old mercenary of a doctor, and they wanted more. I hoped Mom was happy. "How many lien? Dead or alive?"

"Alive. Don't you want to hear about the assignment?"

"Seems like you're going to tell me about it whether I want to or not."

"The heir to Nomad Mining and Industry - the company whose tunnel you so cleverly hunted the faunus terrorist into - was murdered at Shade Academy." I perked up a little at that. Shade was in the Secure Zone, the only part of the capital that really had a government, and Nomad was a big deal even outside of Vacuo. "We have identified the killer, and will pay you one million lien to bring her in. Half goes to your mother, of course. The usual. She's already agreed for the tribe to take the contract."

Gods above, that was a lot of money. "A million lien? Why not use the Defense Force? It'll be cheaper."

"We think you have a history with the killer that may help you find her," Berde said, then shrugged. "Beyond that, you don't need to know."

I decided not to press the issue. The lien mattered. As long as this country paid, they could keep their politics to themselves. "What do you mean by a history?" I asked, briefly pondering the women I've known who would be up for killing a corporate princeling. It wasn't a short list. I would probably have hunted down some of them for free.

Berde handed me a black folder with the emblem of Vacuo embossed on it in gold. Written at the bottom was "BOUNTY CONTRACT - RUBY ROSE." My heart stopped for a moment.

"Good work with Taurus. Let me know when you have her," Berde said, then moved to leave. Simple business arrangement for him, I figured. The other man walked over to my bed.

"Bring me the woman who killed my son," he said, and stalked out after Berde.

Dr. Modra sighed. "I'm going to be stitching you back together again soon, aren't I?"

* * *

He kicked me out a few hours later - his clinic had beds, but they were for people who, in his words, "don't have a magical get-out-of-death-free card called Aura." I ended up in an inn - a surprisingly nice one by my usual standard, with private security and only a respectable minimum of bugs.

By the time I settled in, the sun had started to go down. Sunsets weren't the usual color in Vacuo - they were a smoky red, stained at the edges by a dozen different pollutants in the air into sickly yellow or pale lavender. I was still too wired to sleep, so I opened the folder Berde gave me, with the bounty contract and the target's dossier. I had seen a half dozen others like this in Vacuo alone. It wasn't special. It's wasn't different.

And if I kept telling myself that, maybe one day I'd start to believe it.

I hadn't seen Ruby since I was twelve. Seven years, now. You couldn't trust memories beyond a few months, as my mother often told me - your mind tended to fill in the blurring lines with what you wanted to believe. I knew, then, that my memory of Ruby as a child with a vital joy within her, one that endured even after Summer's disappearance, was probably a lie; I'm sure she had been as annoying and obnoxious as any other spoiled ten-year-old. I could still see the laughing child I remembered in the photo of a sad-looking young woman at Shade in the dossier, but it was buried.

I read over the document. Ruby had entered Shade as a foreign student two years before. Good marks from Signal before that - good scores in combat, good grades in class, but a note - "withdrawn and doesn't like working with others." _Huh? That doesn't sound like Ruby at all._

I kept reading, the words as cold and bureaucratic as my sister had been warm and joyous. Assigned to Team SPHR upon arrival, along with Slate Tengan, Peri Griffith, and Harper Delft. Her teachers hadn't liked her much and neither had her team - Tengan had asked the faculty to move Ruby to another team three times, all denied.

Then, two weeks before the end of her second year at Shade, Tengan had been found impaled, and Ruby had vanished. Sounded pretty clear-cut - aside from the fact that it maked no sense, but I didn't get hired to say "hmm, it seems like based on my experience of the target as a small child that she wouldn't do this."

A crimson light ignited in the middle of the room, complementing the last rays of the sun, and a woman stepped out of the portal expanding within it, glancing around with detached interest. "Good work on killing Taurus," my mother said idly. "You've made me proud." She sat down on the bed at my feet. "Reading up on the girl who murdered the little Nomad heir?"

Nothing had changed. I had almost died, I had killed a man for the family, and all she wanted to talk about was how I should get on with hunting down my own sister. "I don't think she did it," I managed, trying to summon the easy confidence I could show to everyone else. "This doesn't seem like her."

"And what makes you think that, Yang? Why do you think it even matters?" Her eyes narrowed. "Have you really not learned anything in the last seven years?"

That stung, and for a moment I was twelve again, sparring at the camp for the first time under Mom's contemptuous eye. "No, I..." I could see Daff standing over me as I tried to pull myself out of the mud. I took a deep breath.

I had learned. I didn't lose training fights anymore. I wasn't that. I was strong.

"She's my sister. I know my own family." This time my voice was level - no hesitation.

My mother smirked, and disgust dripped from her voice. "Really, now? I haven't exactly seen her around the camp lately. What has she done for you? She's no different from your father - weak. Happy to sit in their little den on Patch and let other people do the hard work." She practically spat the last words. "Neither of them can protect themselves. We're not like that. We protect each other."

I couldn't meet her eyes without feeling like I'd failed her, so I gazed out at Vacuo instead. The setting sun was a red, almost purple disc against the thick industrial murk of the city. "I just want to make sure I'm doing the right thing."

Mom squeezed my hand. "I know you will. And when it's done, I want you to come home for a while. I miss you."

For just a moment, I could meet her eyes. I forced myself not to cry, and I thought about the things I'd done for my family, and all the things they had done for me.

"I miss you too. I won't let you down."


	3. Alone (Ruby)

I woke up shaking and nauseous, but at least I'd been able to sleep. The hard ground of the abandoned barn hadn't made for a restful night, and I was sore and cold, but it was the first time I had slept in the three days since-

That.

My stomach twisted, and found myself coughing and heaving. There was nothing in it to vomit up, but it did its best to try. I waited for the coughing to die down, then pulled myself to my feet. I took a few deep breaths, and forced myself to focus.

I had a rough idea of things I needed to do next. I had already replaced my clothes with brown farmer's trousers, a simple tan blouse, and a grey cloak - but it had cost me most of the lien I had in my pocket, and I knew my bank cards could be tracked if I used them. They were probably frozen anyway. This meant that I had to find food (even if I had to force myself to eat it), and preferably a less recognizable weapon and a place to sleep. Then I could find work as a backwoods huntress and try to save up enough money to get home.

I had no idea what I would do then, but I could at least see Dad again.

The cool morning breeze made me shiver as I left the barn, and I pulled the scratchy cloak tightly around myself. I actually had a plan for the day this time, one that didn't just entail sitting around hating myself or worrying that I was going to start seeing my photo on wanted posters. I had scouted out a little town named Koya Fork, out on the frontier, with just a little spur road and only a couple hours of electricity per day. Maybe if I asked nicely, they would have work for me to do... and I could start over. It sounded nice, in a way. Not like the life I had imagined, but that dream was behind me.

By the time I passed through the potato fields that surrounded Koya Fork, the sun was high in the sky and I was starting to feel actual, genuine hunger for the first time since the night I fled Shade. I paused to plan out my approach. The town wasn't much to look at - fifteen or twenty buildings, corrugated metal and pale stone. I didn't see anyone, but I had learned at Shade that that didn't always mean I was alone. I wanted to look like a respectable huntress, not a bandit, so I extended Crescent Rose into its full scythe form, stood up straight, and walked toward town.

_Now or never._

As I got closer, cracks started to show in the stone buildings, and I realized most of them were missing glass in their windows. It looked like Koya Fork had seen better days; I could see faded murals on a wall here and there, and even what looked like an overgrown playground. If I hadn't seen people working in the fields from a distance yesterday, I would have thought it was abandoned. I paused a moment, trying to guess which of the run-down houses and workshops looked like a good bet. I finally settled on a building that seemed to have some actual glass in a few of its windows, approached the door, and knocked.

Nothing.

I sighed, unhappy with the idea of another wasted day, and more than a little freaked out by the ghost town around me. Just as I turned to walk away, the metal door creaked behind me, and I heard woman's voice. "Don't turn around, girl. Even huntresses don't take well to being shot in the back." The familiar hit of combat adrenaline coursed through me, and I knew I could ram a blade through the woman's chest before she had a chance to pull the trigger...

_No._

I saw Slate's mocking face again, and squeezed my eyes shut. "I'm not here to make trouble, Ma'am," I said quietly. "I was hoping I could help you somehow."

"You're at least more polite than the last ones. Turn around, then. And keep your hands off that scythe."

I turned around slowly, making sure to keep my hands firmly at my side. The woman who had been talking to me turned out to be a wiry lady in her fifties, gripping a rusty dust revolver with white knuckles. An old man stood next to her, and I could see the silhouettes of other people - adults and children - in the room beyond. The woman glanced over me for a long moment, seeming to pay special attention to Crescent Rose. Nobody moved. I decided to take a leap of faith.

"Excuse me," I said quietly. "Would you be more comfortable if I put my weapon on the ground?"

"I certainly would. But don't try anything. I know from personal experience y'all aren't bulletproof."

I gently placed Crescent Rose in the dust between us, and I stepped back a little. The woman visibly relaxed. "So, you say you aren't here from Maeda?"

"No. I'm just a huntress. I've fallen on hard times and I had hoped I could be useful, if I could have a place to stay, " I said. "I don't know what trouble you're having but I promise I'm not part of it."

She squinted at me - perhaps trying to come to a decision, or tell if I was lying. "Fair enough, then. I'm Niji. Follow me, leave your scythe on the ground, and we'll talk."

* * *

Niji led me to a workshop near the far edge of town. Dust-covered farm machines lurked ominously in the corners; the only things that seemed to have been touched lately were scythes (which I looked over appreciatively), sickles, and a grindstone. "Not enough dust to run 'em," said Niji, noticing my interest. "Things have been rough here since the war." That could have referred to seven or eight distinct wars over the last century, but I figured it wasn't a great idea to be nosy. She sighed. "I'm not rightly sure what you're expecting, coming here. Can't pay you much."

"That's okay! Just... do you have food? And maybe somewhere soft to rest?" Three days of wandering and tears hit me suddenly, and I felt more tired than I ever had in my life. My hands were trembling, and I closed my eyes for a moment to stop my head from spinning.

"Who the hell are you, girl?" Niji asked gently.

"I'm just a huntress. I've seen your town, I know you understand what it's like to fall on hard times," I said. "I won't disappoint you. I just need a chance."

"We had a huntsman once. I watched him die. Stumbled home with half his guts scorched. It's not just the Grimm that make trouble for us." She paused, sizing me up. "Think you can handle the other kinds of trouble?"

I had to think on that one a little. I had killed Slate Tengan. I could see it, over and over, in my head. It was a mistake - a moment of fear and reflex that I could never take back - and while Slate was a cruel and violent person, he hadn't deserved what I had given him. "Can you... tell me who's making trouble?" I asked tentatively. I wasn't about to turn bandit, so the answer mattered.

Niji sat down at a work table covered with dusty machine parts, and gestured for me to do the same. "You know the rebels?"

I nodded. I knew what everyone knew - that ever since the last war, there had been chaos in most of the country. I hadn't seen much sign of it in Shade, where most of the students were from wealthy families, but the news was full of accounts of terrorists who wanted Atlas out and the king back in. Slate called them "anarchist filth."

"We don't want any part of any of that," Niji continued. "Things were better in a lot of ways when the king was here, but the way I see it, the rebels ain't much more than bandits. But there's a guy named Maeda who doesn't think that's enough." She reached for a cleaning cloth and began stripping her dust revolver. "He's got some kind of deal with the government to pay him to fight the rebels out here. And he has a way of seeing anyone who doesn't give his boys most of the harvest as helping the rebels." She snapped the revolver's cylinder shut with finality. "If he had his way, we'd have starved to death a year ago."

I was a little bit shaken by this. I had already killed someone with close ties to the government, and even when I was trying to lay low, it seemed I couldn't avoid tough choices. "I didn't really come out here to kill people," I said quietly.

Niji reholstered her revolver. "We've never had to. Maeda's boys tend to leave people alone when they meet strong objections. But we sure could use a huntress again." She raised her hand, and I could see the faintest glow of aura dancing around it. She smiled. "I've managed so far. I'm tougher than I look. But I'm no huntress. I don't know who the hell you are, but if you can look as scary as you did walking into town, you'll do just fine." She extended her hand, and I took it. "I still haven't asked... what's your name?"

"Carmine," I answered. We both knew full well it was a lie, of course.

"Well, Carmine, glad to have you with us."

* * *

The next few hours were a blur. The old man who had stood behind Niji when she threatened me with her dust pistol turned out to be the mayor, Ruskea; he was so deaf he barely caught a word when Niji introduced me, but he shook my hand politely all the same. Niji assured me that while Ruskea hearing was not what it once was, he had forgotten more about dry farming than anyone else ever knew. I met a long set of people whose names I tried to keep straight - Russ the baker, Sage and her daughter Olivia, the laughing and friendly carpenter Jett...

They were just people.

It was strange to be back among regular people and treated as one of them. For the last two years, I had bounced between either being revered as an elite in training or being worse-than-useless dead weight for Team SPHR. Here they seemed to actually want me around, not as some kind of talisman of victory, but as someone who could make a difference for people who lived a hard life.

After getting through the introductions, Niji brought out two plates of boiled potatoes and winter wheat bread and sat down with me at one of the tables outdoors. The sun was low on the horizon, and Vacuo's hostile desert was stained a rich golden color. Niji poured herself some clear liquor from an unmarked bottle. "It won't always be easy," she said quietly. "Things just keep getting worse. Half the time I think we should go nomad."

"I don't expect easy." The boiled potatoes tasted like ambrosia after three days without eating, and I found myself hoping there were more where they came from. "I've killed Grimm before. It's what I'm good at. Easy doesn't really come into it."

Niji sipped at her vodka. "You sound like Yu Hui. He thought he was a real red-blooded hero. Arrogant son of a bitch, but he would give you the clothes off his back if you asked. Helped in the fields, fought the Grimm, and... well, you know what happened to him."

"Maeda?" I asked. She just shrugged.

"Maybe. Maybe not. It could have been the rebels just as easily, or bandits. But he's dead." She downed the rest of her shot. "I can't shake the feeling things are going to get a lot worse. Back when I was little, you could walk from here to Wheat Creek or Orchard with nobody bothering you. But Wheat Creek went nomad a long time ago, and Orchard's dead. Grimm got 'em. Not surprising, with the rebellion."

I watched the sun dip below the horizon. I could imagine Grimm roaming through the desert, far more real here than in canned training scenarios back at Shade, a lethal and vital threat that people had to deal with every day. "I won't let that happen here," I said, quietly but with an ironclad conviction.

"You'd better not. I watched Yu Hui die. Once was enough."


	4. The Other Side (Yang)

I stumbled into the empty house just after dusk. The Transcon Highway had changed since the last time I had been out this way; the houses and occasional stores were empty and sometimes marked with weapons fire. The only people I had seen on the road itself were a few refugees traveling toward Vacuo City, and a lone Atlas Military vehicle that had slowed down as it passed me but had evidently decided it had somewhere else to be.

The house seemed empty, but I was tired, disoriented, and more than a little worried about Grimm in a place that should have more than enough misery and disorder to call to them. Glancing around the dust and shadows, I reached for Ignis Caelestis and triggered a switch on the guandao's haft. Bright flames danced along the weapon's blade. I went through the living room, the single bedroom, and the kitchen, peeking into closets and around corners, but my weapon didn't illuminate anything more threatening than a large dead crow - the organic kind, not the Grimm kind - on the kitchen floor.

I reflected a moment. The bedroom had a bed with a mattress, but... something about the family photos on the wall, the mementos on the dresser, didn't feel like I belonged. Whoever lived here was clearly long gone, and in a hurry, but their presence lingered. I laid out my bedroll on the living room floor instead, set Ignis Caelestis down next to it, and tried to adjust into a position where I could easily see both doors to the room.

I was still wary, though. I didn't like being here, I didn't like the emptiness and destruction in the land around me, and I didn't like the idea of hunting down Ruby for money. I tried to figure out what exact moment in my life had marked the gap between the girl who loved her sister more than anything and the girl who would cross any line for her family and her tribe. Nothing came to mind. Maybe I had always been that way - a fighter, not a thinker, willing to leave those choices to someone else. Moonlight shone in through the room's single window, and I glanced outside - still no Grimm, just a little barn in the distance, surrounded by overgrown grass.

The whole place felt wrong.

I knew I needed to sleep; the real work would begin in the morning. I ran through the exercises I had learned from my mother, Huntress focus routines - breath control, aura shaping, tensing and untensing single muscles. I tried not to think about the happy family whose photos I had seen in the bedroom, or about the little girl I was betraying every moment I pursued this mission.

And finally, I slept.

* * *

I woke to the sound of the front door opening. No subtlety, no sneakiness - that was a sign that could point to Grimm, although they didn't usually bother with door handles. I stood up, quietly as I could, and reached for Ignis Caelestis. With the touch of a switch the weapon compressed to half of its length, just long enough to be useful in close-quarters indoor fighting, and I crouched down, waiting for the intruder to show itself.

I saw movement, then lunged. Instinct drove me forward; I identified the intruder as a human in the back of my mind, adjusted, shoved them to the ground, and ignited the blade of Ignis Caelestis. The intruder lay on its - her - back now, looking up at me in shock, breathing heavily. She didn't look like much of a threat - much shorter than me, and skinny, with a shock of short pale hair above a ghost-white face, ruddy in my weapon's firelight. "Who are you?" I demanded. She didn't say anything at all, and I realized she was shaking. "I won't hurt you," I added quietly. "I just wasn't expecting company. You can get up." I stepped back and pulled Ignis Caelestis away from her chest, although I kept the blade burning, just in case.

She just stared at me for a few seconds, then bolted backwards on all fours for the nearest wall. I sighed. "All you just did is corner yourself. If I really wanted to hurt you, I would have already." This girl wasn't going to be a threat, but she certainly could be an annoyance if this was how the night was going to go. I turned around and grabbed a ration cylinder from my pack, and set it on the ground between us. "Here. Food. Not bad, but it's not exactly home cooking."

"I'm Nix," she said in a voice barely above a whisper.

"Hi Nix. I'm Yang."

* * *

It took a few minutes, but she finally did take the ration cylinder, although she only took little nibbles of the freeze-dried turkey inside. She kept glancing fearfully at Ignis Caelestis, and I finally switched the flame off, leaving us illuminated only by moonlight through the windows. Nix seemed to calm down without a burning weapon being held in my hands, and she hesitantly walked over to sit next to me. "Are you a rebel?" she asked quietly.

"No, I'm..." I pondered. "I'm kind of a freelance huntress. I'm looking for a criminal."

"Oh!" Nix perked up for the first time since she stumbled into the house. "My sister was a Huntress too! So you defend humanity and help people in need?" she asked around a mouthful of preserved chocolate ration-cake.

"Well, I'm more of a specialist," I said. I was used to this; a lot of people had an idealized view of Huntresses as some kind of superheroes, rescuing cats from trees while single-handedly raining hell down on the creatures of Grimm. "I do missions that help my family, sometimes earn some extra money on the side."

Her face fell. "A bounty hunter."

"Pretty much." I didn't need to justify it. The world was safer without Adam Taurus in it. I ignored the little voice in my head asking if the world would be safer without Ruby in it too. "A bounty hunter that needs to get some sleep, actually. What do you say you keep watch for a bit, and wake me in a couple hours?"

She nodded, and turned to watch the doors. I climbed into my bedroll and went back to sleep.

* * *

That was the end of the night's excitement. We were both tired when the sun rose, but very much alive. "What happens now?" Nix asked as I rolled up my bedroll and tossed her another ration cylinder. I shrugged. "Where are you going? Maybe we're headed the same way, can split watches." I wasn't normally that enthusiastic about having company, but I also didn't feel like going to sleep and never waking up because I didn't see the Grimm or the rebels show up. Nix took a moment to answer.

"I'm not exactly going anywhere," she said quietly, looking at the ground.

"What, are you in trouble? Bad boyfriend? Some kind of problem with the local cops?"

"None of your business."

"Hey, I'm not that kind of bounty hunter. You can tell me."

"What kind of bounty hunter _are_ you, then?" she asked coolly.

She had me there. "Look, I'm just trying to find one girl. She's in trouble, and I wish she wasn't," I said. "I don't make that call. But I'm not after you, and I wish I wasn't after her. I don't do this for fun." I wasn't used to being this open with people, but something about the idea of her wandering the Transcon Highway alone and breaking into abandoned houses in the middle of the night was less than comforting.

Nix studiously rifled through the contents of her ration cylinder, not meeting my eyes. "If it's okay, maybe I can come along with you for a while. And... maybe we can talk about it."

I reached over and put a hand on her shoulder. "You're on."

* * *

"What did your criminal do, anyway?" Nix asked. She had mostly been quiet so far; the surrounding fields were getting emptier and emptier, and Nix kept eyeing the torched barns and collapsed homes nervously.

"She killed someone, supposedly. She was a student at Shade, and disappeared around the same time her team leader was killed."

"Oh... did she have a motive or something?"

"They don't usually tell me those kinds of things, but who knows. I just got picked because I'm a pretty good fighter, and I actually used to know her." I spotted something moving out of the corner of my eye, a rustle in a field off the side of the road, and lunged at Nix.

"What do you mean, you know- HEY!" We thudded to the ground together. Bullets screamed over our heads, and I reached for Ignis Caelestis before thinking better of it. Figures were rising from the field where I had seen motion, several humans and faunus in uniform carrying rifles.

"Stop shooting, you assholes! We're just travelers!" I screamed, and waved a hand. I found myself wishing I had chosen a longer-range weapon, but it's not like I got ambushed by people hiding in fields on a regular basis. My profession was usually more of an up-close-and-personal kind of deal.

Nobody replied, but at a hand signal from their leader, the shooting stopped. The soldiers approached cautiously, and I slowly got to my feet, keeping my hands in the air. Nix stayed on the ground, shaking and crying.

_Idiot. You were supposed to keep her safe. Good going._

As the fighters approached, it became clear that they weren't a particularly pretty sight; even their leader, a faunus with the striped hair and ears of a badger, was gaunt-faced and skinny, and the rest were worse, with rusting weapons and filthy uniforms bearing the insignia of Vacuo. Without the ambush, they would have been no match for me. "Any particular reason you decided to shoot first and ask questions later?" I asked, brushing dirt off my clothes.

"Not a lot of tourists here lately," the leader said. He glanced at Ignis Caelestis, and tightened his grip on his dust rifle. "So let me get this straight. You two just decided to take a walk through an active war zone while armed with..." - he gestured vaguely at the guandao over my back - "some kind of huntress weapon, and we're supposed to believe you aren't rebels?"

"Could shoot 'em just to make sure," said one of the others, and there were murmurs of agreement from his comrades. Nix squeaked, and I wished I could sit down and comfort her, but that would have to wait until people stopped pointing guns at us.

"No, look." I slowly pulled my Vacuo government ID out of my rucksack and held it up. "See? I'm working for Vacuo. Same as you guys. So maybe stop it with the talking about shooting us, yeah? I'm just looking for someone." They didn't seem convinced. "And I've got food to share?"

The leader exhaled, and I realized he had been as terrified as I was. "Fine. Come with us and we'll talk. My name's Fallow."

* * *

Their camp was in a warehouse a few minutes' walk off the main highway, and it smelled of rust and stale potatoes. Some of the roof slats were missing, and the rain that had been lurking on the horizon in the morning was starting to pour through.

I had held Nix's hand the whole way there, but her expression was still blank, lost. She sat down with Fallow and I in a makeshift office in an old supply closet, lit by portable dustlights and with its walls covered in maps. "We've been on hardship rations for the last two weeks," Fallow explained. "We were supposed to go home a month ago. How many ration cans can you share?"

Feeding Nix had already put a dent in what had seemed like a bottomless mound of food two short days ago, and I would need to find an alternate source soon - but using them to prevent us both from getting shot was a worthy cause. I had ten left, and we could be full - although not really satisfied - on two per day each. "How's... three?" I asked.

"It'll do." I passed him the cylinders, one at a time, and he smiled for the first time. "Sorry for shooting at you. I don't know how long you've been out here, but things have been getting worse lately. Even Atlas has been getting hit hard."

Nix lifted her head at that. "Atlas didn't expect things to be like this," she said quietly. "Everyone thought it was just peacekeeping, infrastructure, stuff like that. Not fighting a war." Well, well... that confirmed a thing or two. I made a mental note to get some solid answers from Nix when we didn't have an audience. Fallow shrugged.

"I was at Acteon. It didn't look much like peacekeeping." 

Nix recoiled as if she had been slapped, and I quickly cut in before things could get worse. "Any chance you've seen another huntress around here?" I asked. "Teenager, pretty, lethal with agricultural tools?"

"Friend of yours?"

"Not exactly. We're hunting her down."

"Deserter or something?"

"Or something." I reached into my pack and pulled out another ration can. "Mmm, chicken stew with beans. Sounds pretty tasty to me." Fallow made a move to grab the cylinder, but I pulled it away. "With a spice cake dessert, too!"

"There's a rebel huntress that showed up in Koya Fork. Scythe, right?" I let him swat the ration can out of my hands. "We've got an assault on Koya Fork planned for tomorrow at sunset, with Atlas and Maeda's guys. You're welcome to come along and pick up whatever pieces the Paladins leave."

I extended my hand, and he shook it. "You've got a deal."

* * *

"I'm leaving."

Nix stood ramrod straight in our makeshift bedroom, a converted office in an unused part of the warehouse. I had expected we'd have to have a Very Serious Talk, but it was going to be a cold day in all three hells before I let her wander off unarmed. Mom would say I was getting soft, but I had enough on my conscience without letting Nix walk off to die.

"You're Atlesian, right?" I asked, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Whatever it is, can we at least talk about it before you go get yourself killed by Grimm?"

"Yes. And no. I can't do this, Yang. Thanks for taking me this far, but..." A tear ran down her cheek, and she stared at the ground. "This wasn't what I wanted. None of this." She sat down against the wall, and I sat next to her, and put an arm around her.

"You're a deserter, right?" I asked.

Nix sobbed. "I was at Acteon, and... look, this wasn't what I expected." She took a deep breath, and put her hand on mine. "I thought I was just doing my part for the world, you know? I was a technician, a really good one, and after the attack on Vale, I wanted to help. Everyone said Mistral did it, and if we didn't help Vacuo, Mistral would hit it next, and...

"And then I got here, and it was so damn hard. I thought I was going to be working on helping Vacuo but mostly it just came down to trying not to get killed. Keeping the Paladins running, and generators for the Vacuan troops, and stuff like that. Sometimes we were able to really help people out in the country, but a lot of the time it was just about trying to fight a war. I didn't want to. I didn't think it would be like this.

"And then we were passing through Acteon in a convoy, just on the way to Tiryns, and everything blew up. It was an ambush." She buried her head in my shoulder, and I patted her hair awkwardly. "And I hid under the transport and covered my ears, and an hour later, Acteon was just rubble, and I knew we did it."

"So you left," I said softly.

"Yeah. And I'm not going back, Yang. I can't."

I held her tighter, and felt her tears running down my shoulder. "You won't have to. I'll protect you. And if I have it my way, nobody's dying this time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ruby, with a relatively conventional (if lonely) upbringing, ended up with the same weapon as in canon. Yang, who had a radically different life, did not.


	5. Sunset Part I (Ruby and Yang)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be part 1 of 2, plus an interlude.

  
**Ruby**

* * *

"You have to understand, our food supply is mostly limited to what we can eat," Niji said. "We're not interested in your war or the rebels. So kindly shove off."

She was sitting at a folding table, across from a pale, scarred man, not much taller than I was, flanked by a pair of uniformed Vacuan officers. Colonel Andros Maeda, he had introduced himself as. Warlord of the Kingdom, Military Governor of the East. He had glanced over me appraisingly as he sat down, eyeing Crescent Rose as I stood calmly behind Niji. "I don't think you understand the situation you're in," he said softly. "The decree on the state of emergency allows the Defense Forces to seize any materiel deemed essential to the war effort. It's not optional."

Niji grunted dismissively. "And if we tell you you can't have it?"

"You'll be deemed rebels. You know what that means."

"We're still not interested. Winter's on the way. Leave, or I'll have Carmine remove you." I tensed, waiting for Maeda to do something stupid, feeling the sharp edge of combat adrenaline...

... but nothing happened. Maeda stood up, and sighed. "I tried. It's on your hands, Niji." He stalked off, shadowed by his aides, and left me with Niji. She slumped into her chair, and over the course of a few seconds seemed to age several years. I sat down across from her, and placed my hand on hers.

"He'll leave us alone, right?" I asked softly. Niji seemed lost in thought, staring at my hand, her skin pallid in the gray autumn afternoon light.

"I wish I knew. Last few times, he just sent out goons, he didn't come out in person. I think something's changing." She sighed, and her whole frame seemed to sag into the chair. I had only known her for a few days, but I had never seen her look as tired as she did now.

It had been an eventful few days. I had had actual food and sleep, even though the latter was on the floor of the same workshop I had negotiated with Niji in. A pile of blankets was no substitute for a bed, but I wasn't complaining - the walls were thin but they kept the cold wind out, and something about the intricate dust-powered machines lurking in the corners made me feel nice and comfy.

At first, they didn't have much for me to do. I spent a day in the fields, and I learned that being in top condition for combat doesn't necessarily prepare you to spend eight hours doing hard labor. The next day, one of the locals, Saffron, was attacked by a beowolf while harvesting winter wheat north of town, and suddenly I had a mission. A day later, I came back tired and sore, and there were five fewer beowolves near Koya Fork. There were no more questions about whether I would be allowed to stay after that.

People actually liked me here, and looked to me to defend them. It wasn't much, but it was a place I could feel alive again. I wasn't going to let them down. This was what being a Huntress was supposed to mean.

I ran a finger over Crescent Rose's edge, testing the sharpness. "I had better go get ready," I said to Niji. She just nodded.

**Yang**

* * *

"Paladins? Why the hell? I thought Fallow was kidding," I muttered to myself, looking over the Vacuan force's preparations from a ridge above. Two Paladins were being readied by weary-looking technicians, and a group of pilots in Atlesian uniforms had congregated in a tight  
knot on their own, speaking urgently. Vacuan troops were cleaning weapons. An officer with a longbow and a quiver of arrows in the rainbow hues of dust - a Huntsman, I assumed - conferred with a sergeant while gesturing at the distant buildings of Koya Fork.

"After Acteon, things changed," Nix answered, her voice shaking. "Nobody wants to be a soft target."

"Yeah, well, means we're going to have to change too. If she gets turned into Bits'o'Huntress in the first wave of the attack, we're screwed on so many levels. And..." _I don't want her to die._ I considered the situation. The sun was still bright, but in winter, it set fast. "We need to head in before the army does. Now, actually."

"What??" Nix's head swiveled around, her eyes wide. "You want to just meander into a rebel town and kidnap their Huntress before Vacuo attacks?"

"Well... yeah?" Now that she mentioned it, that didn't sound like such a great idea. "But maybe, if we get in there early, we can talk to her. Figure out some way to get Vacuo to call off the assault. Normally people don't hire me for diplomacy, but I'm not seeing a better option."

Nix was still tense, but she was visibly relieved. "You mean a plan that doesn't involve fighting everyone in our way? I like it already."

**Ruby**

* * *

I watched through Crescent Rose's scope as a pair of Paladins lumbered to life, advancing past an inactive third. I had never fought a Paladin before, although I saw them every day, patrolling the Secure Zone around Shade. The war machines had always fascinated me,  
whether arrayed in neat lines on a tarmac in the Atlas garrison, or guarding Vacuan government buildings. My Armed Combat professor had said that a Paladin generally allowed a regular person to operate at the same level as a Huntsman against large Grimm, or better with  
a good pilot.

I didn't exactly anticipate seeing them up close, or I would have taken better notes.

I jumped down from the roof of the house I was watching from. Niji looked to me expectantly, but I just shook my head. "Paladins. Two. Maybe three. I don't know if I can take them on," I said.

"Any idea whose they are?"

"No, they were too far away to see markings. Just big gray mecha-things."

"Probably Atlas, then. Last I knew, Vacuo's Paladins were mostly in the city." She stared at the horizon, although the strike force was too far to see. "We should have gone nomad years ago."

"Maybe it's just a threat," I offered. "Maybe Maeda will come back with another demand? Look at how big and mean my forces are, now play nice?"

"Maybe so. Maybe so." She clearly didn't expect it.

This was it, then. An actual confrontation. The more I thought about timing, the more my heart sank. I thought of the people barricaded in the old school building, kids and moms and sons, scared and unarmed. "Niji... I am sincerely sorry if I brought this here," I whispered. Killing  
Slate might wash out over enough years. If I caused a bloodbath, I wouldn't be clean as long as I lived.

Niji looked me piercingly in the eye a moment, then shook her head. "You didn't. This was coming for a long time. Whatever you're running from, it just brought you here to stand with the rest of us."

That wasn't enough. None of it was enough. "But if you had no Huntress, maybe they would have just come in and taken some food. What if they burn this place to the ground? What if-" _What if I get you all killed? What if I brought a curse down on you?_ I shut my eyes, sobbing quietly, and waited for Niji to shoot me or tell me to leave or something.

Instead, she slapped me, hard. "Enough of that crap, Carmine," she said, and I opened my eyes. Fury was etched on her features, and for a moment, as if through a haze, I could see the Huntress she could have been with the training I was given, a fearsome guardian with a halo of rage and authority. "If you had not been here, Maeda maybe shoots us all as traitors and rebels and takes what we have without a fight. We wanted you here because you gave us a fighting chance. I truly could not give less of a damn what you're running from, as long as you're here to fight on our side.

"So take your pick, girl. Stay here or run away. Because I don't see a lot of other options. I'm going to check on the school, and by the time I get back, you had better have made your choice."

She stormed off, leaving me confused and dejected.

"I have another option," said a voice behind me, and a figure out of my dreams and nightmares walked casually out from behind a tool shed. Not the big sister I remembered, but just as beautiful - even clad in dirty (and bloodstained) armor and carrying a rucksack on her back, she was lovely, with the soft lilac eyes and radiant hair I remembered, shining in the sunlight.

"Yang?" I whispered. "Yang Xiao Long?"

**Yang**

* * *

"Actually, it's Yang Branwen now," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. My little sister, the vivacious, loving girl I had held in my arms after Summer died, had grown up. Even in the simple trousers and shirt of a farmer, she was impossibly pretty - and dangerous. The weapon described in her dossier, Crescent Rose, was folded up slung over her back. A scythe, like my - our - uncle, and a rifle.

Seven years of missing her hit home all at once.

I had a job to do, though. My mother's voice echoed in my head. _We protect each other._ You don't turn against family, ever, nor against tribe. "Nix, you can come out now. I don't think she's going to shoot you," I said, and Nix stepped gingerly out into the open, eyeing Ruby with  
suspicion.

"So this is the rebel Huntress?" she asked, voice dripping with distrust and dislike.

"What? No!" Ruby's eyes flicked from Nix to me and back. "I'm just... it's... we're not rebels!"

Huh. "You're not?" I asked.

"No. Maeda just wants our food! And they think we're harboring rebels or something! And he and Niji - she's that woman from before - kind of hate each other!"

I blinked. "Fucking seriously? Maeda is about to torch this place because he wants some corn or something?"

"Well, potatoes, actually... and winter wheat... but... yes?" Ruby was clearly baffled by the entire situation. "So I take it you aren't here to save the day? We could really use your help..."

"Look, it's complicated." I took a deep breath and tried to figure out how to explain it. "We need to talk later. Let's just try to avoid the kind of situation where we're shooting each other over potatoes. What if you let Maeda's troops search for rebels if they promise to leave you alone after?"

Ruby was clearly not sold on the idea. "Well, maybe. But Niji wouldn't like it. And what about the food?"

Nix made a tiny cough, an adorable sound coming from her. "What if Niji gives a cut of future harvests to the army?" she suggested, getting into the spirit of things. "Could wait until after this winter, except maybe a little bit as a gesture?"

"We could probably allow that," Ruby said, daring to look hopeful for the first time. "Niji says we usually take losses to Grimm activity, so if I'm here and the army helps protect from Grimm, we would probably have extra. I'd have to ask her, though."

"And I'd have to talk to Maeda. But maybe, just maybe, we can fix this before things get nasty."

* * *

"Who the fuck is this, Fallow?" the man in the Vacuan Colonel's uniform - Maeda, I assumed - asked. "And why the fuck are you bringing them into my ops center right before we start shooting?" Fallow wilted. I could understand why - Maeda looked about ready to have a conniption, and soldiers around the pavilion were frantically covering up any document or map with classified markings. I decided to take matters into my own hands.

"Yang Branwen," I said, striding forward with a grin. Fallow had insisted I leave my weapons with him before he agreed to take us into the ops tent, so confidence was the only weapon I had. "On assignment from Vacuo Special Warfare. And this is Nix Xiao Long" - I had no idea what her actual last name was, and if she was wanted as a deserter, I wanted to avoid her real name - "of Atlas's Vacuo Advisory Command. We're here to discuss a proposal to avoid the attack on Koya Fork."

You could have heard a pin drop in the crowded ops tent. "A proposal," Maeda said, quietly. "May I ask what this so-called proposal is?"

"Koya Fork will let you patrol for rebels unopposed. They'll contribute a cut of future harvests to supply Vacuo troops in the area. And you'll call off the attack and stop harrassing them."

"How generous." Maeda seemed to be considering it, and I felt hope rise in my heart. He looked around at his soldiers. "All of you bear witness," he said, enunciating every syllable. "If Atlas asks, they received a trial." He turned back to us, with a grin that sat somwhere between "feral" and "Grimm." "You both are charged with sedition and aiding the enemy in a time of war. Do you have anything to say in your defense?"

Wait. No. No. No. This was not happening. He was considering it! "I'm trying to save lives for once, you bastard!" I screamed, and reached for Ignis Caelestis out of instinct, only to find it was gone. Maeda drew his sidearm, and several of his staff followed his lead. Nix whimpered beside me.

We were screwed. Serves me right for trying to play diplomat.

Maeda's voice was clear and cold. "Having considered your defense, I find you both guilty as charged and sentence you to death by firing squad. Take them out back." Three soldiers - one for Nix, two for me - shoved us out of the tent, weapons pointed at our heads. I looked to Fallow to back us up, but he just stared back helplessly. Given the situation, I couldn't exactly blame him.

We were pushed over to a dry riverbed just outside of the camp. "On your knees," a young faunus with sergeant's stripes and a feline tail ordered. Nix complied with tears running down her cheeks, but I remained standing.

"Do you know what a Semblance is, Sarge?" I asked conversationally.

"What, you a Huntress? Immune to getting shot or something? I don't think so," she replied. "Get on your knees and maybe I'll shoot your head instead of starting with your stomach and arms."

I took a step forward. Three rifles came up.

All three pointed at me.

I took another step, and the energy bolts hit a moment later. Pain screamed through every nerve in my body, sheer agony, but it meant my gamble had paid off - regular energy cartridges, not dust.

I was alive. And I burned.

I ripped the rifle out of the sergeant's hands effortlessly, and it crashed into her head a moment later just as easily. She crumpled, maybe dead, maybe not - it wasn't my highest priority at the moment. The second soldier fell to a kick to the head an instant after. He clearly wasn't dead, but fell to the ground screaming and terrified. I turned to the third; he dropped his rifle and tripped as he tried to run. I towered over him. It would have been easy to prevent him from coming after us, to punish him for trying to kill Nix and I for trying to help people.

He looked so young. Wiry, thin, shaking.

"Be nice to people who are trying to do it right," I told him softly, picked up his rifle, and walked over to Nix. "We're safe, but we need to move. Now." The pain was starting to sink in as the adrenaline wore off, and we needed to warn Ruby before the attack hit. I handed her the  
rifle. "No time to go back for Ignis..."

"I have to help you," she said as she stood up. "You saved me again."

She looked ethereally beautiful, even tear-stained, illuminated by the rays of the setting sun. I did the only thing I could do after putting her through all this. I hugged her tight, and kissed her forehead. "I feel like I lose some points for saving you when it's my fault you're in  
danger. Didn't think that would happen... That Maeda guy seems a little unhinged." I tried to reach into my rucksack but failed. "Nix... if you could... please go in there and get the cylinder labeled VAI-3. I'm not sure how much longer I can stay standing."

"Of course. Anything." She handed me the little cylinder. This time I was the trembling, helpless girl, in above her depth. If it weren't for Nix, I would die here. I uncapped the tube, and drove the syringe into my thigh, biting my tongue to suppress a scream. I waited for the drug to start filtering through, and forced a smile. Hopefully Aura would handle the rest soon.

"You ready for a walk?"

**Ruby**

* * *

Crescent Rose practically glowed. Six magazines of ammunition rested next to it on the bench, each loaded with a slightly different dust payload. I built it, so it rarely malfunctions, but I wanted to make sure. Every speck of dirt was removed.

"I don't think your friend is coming back, Carmine," Niji said. "Are those Paladins still moving?" I raised the scope to my eye again. Two were advancing at a steady rate, and now I could see the line of soldiers on the ground ahead of them, too. The fields we had harvested only two days earlier were being trampled - good timing.

"Yeah. Five, maybe ten minutes." I inserted a magazine into Crescent Rose, climbed the ladder to the top of the grain silo, and got ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 will be posted on 17 November 2019.


	6. Sunset Part II (Ruby and Yang)

**Yang**

* * *

It became a cycle. Take a step. Bite back a scream. Take a step.

We were lucky Paladins are slow for sustained movement, especially over rough ground. Otherwise we wouldn't even have a chance. We had taken a broad curve around around the side of the Vacuan strike force; it was indirect, but it had a couple of small ridges that helped conceal our approach.

Take a step. Bite back a scream. Divert to avoid stepping on a prickly pear. Take a step.

The sun finally dipped below the horizon right as we entered town. It was almost silent, nothing but the rustling of the scrub grass in the wind and a mournful groaning of corrugated metal from the buildings around us.

I glanced around, searching for Ruby or maybe that Niji lady. I don't know what I wanted to do, but I needed to do something. If I didn't, Niji would die, Ruby would die, a bunch of Vacuan soldiers would die, and the odds were good that many of the people of Koya Forks would die.

We approached a cross street, bordered by a pair of grain siloes, a home, and what looked like a small mill. "Wait here," I whispered to Nix, and peered around the corner toward the south.

Vacuan troops were pouring into town in neat columns, and the pair of Paladins loomed behind them. Doors were being kicked in, houses were being searched. The Battle of Koya Fork had begun. I recoiled from the corner, and ran back to Nix. She seemed to be staring at something around a corner I couldn't see, something that made her wide-eyed and motionless.

A worn, thin woman with hair the color of lead stepped out from behind the corner, holding a revolver pointed directly at Nix. "Don't move, girl," she said quietly. "I know why you're here."

"You... do?" I asked, wishing the morphic I injected hadn't slowed my reflexes. _If I wasn't hurt, old lady, you'd be dead by now._ "Niji, I assume? Why am I here, then?" I reached for the rifle, millimeter by millimeter.

"You want to take Carmine away, or confuse her, and leave us defenseless so Maeda can kill us all. But I won't allow you to."

"Huh." I was impressed. She wasn't even entirely wrong. "What if I told you I tried to stop this and almost got shot for my trouble? And so did the girl you're pointing a gun at?"

"Her?" She laughed, a coarse, humorless sound. "This little spy from Atlas? I don't think so."

_One more millimeter, then I can bring it up and fire..._ I tensed up, got ready, and...

A single shot rang out. Niji crumpled dead at my feet. I hadn't fired.

"Freeze! Get on your knees! Drop the rifle! Let the hostage go!" someone screamed, and I whipped around. Soldiers were filling the alleyway, squad leaders shouting orders, weapons raising to point at us. It seemed someone had figured out an understandable, but still wrong, idea of what was going on in the alley.

_Well, we had a pretty good run._ I looked to Nix, smiled, and tensed up. _Shove her out of the way, go down fighting, and buy her enough time to leave... not a great plan, but a long way from my worst-ever._

That's when a dark blur, followed by a cloud of rose petals, tore around the corner and dove into the mass of Vacuan soldiers with a scream of hurt and loss. I pushed Nix into a gap between buildings, coiled up, and waited.

**Ruby**

* * *

At Shade they had made a point of the importance of waiting for the opportune moment to strike. If you start fighting as soon as an enemy shows up, you've lost potential opportunities that would arise with patience.

So I sat on a rooftop and waited. I knew the troops had entered the town, and were, by the sound of it, searching homes - but that didn't matter at the moment. All that mattered was protecting the school and the frightened people huddling in it. The people, not the buildings, were the thing worth defending.

That was easier before a gunshot rang out.

I fell into the rush of my semblance, and flowed effortlessly through the gaps between buildings. I saw soldiers. I saw the Paladins.

And I saw Niji's lifeless body, and the group of men and women pointing weapons at Yang and Nix.

I crashed into them like a tidal wave. Metal screamed against armor. The woman who had taken a chance on me was dead, and they wanted to kill my sister too? No. Never. Not even if I had to die myself, like Mom, for a higher purpose. An energy bolt grazed my shirt, leaving a charred hole and a stinging pain, but I didn't slow down.

Some of the soldiers broke and ran. Some held their ground. The ones who held were no match for me. I flitted in and out of my semblance, cutting, stabbing, dodging. I targeted weapons instead of people where I could, but it wasn't always that easy, and blood mixed with rose petals in Koya's dirt.

Niji was dead. Niji was dead and they had killed her. The only person who had given me a real chance since I left Vale.

The remaining soldiers were falling back, and I didn't pursue them. Maybe I had won. Maybe Koya Fork was safe. I looked for Yang, or the quiet, slim girl that seemed to be her companion, but the road was empty except for the dead and the dying. Perhaps she had seen what I had done and run away. I couldn't blame her if she had. Everywhere I went, I brought death and misfortune.

A rumble echoed between the buildings, and the ground shook. So this was it, then. I had been an idiot to think I'd walk away from this. The two Paladins advanced step by step, sillhouetted against the final rays of the setting sun, and my grip tightened on Crescent Rose. One more step, wait for the opportune moment...

Two shots, electric. One shot, ice. Semblance. Scythe. Swing.

I rebounded off the Paladin, hit the ground hard, and dove back into semblance to get out of the line of fire. Energy bolts hit the road a split second after I left it, and the pungent scent of melting dirt and ozone made me double over coughing. I forced myself back to my feet and hid in an alley behind a silo, and glanced back to see if I had succeeded in destroying the Paladin I hit.

No such luck. The Paladin had some clear damage, and one of its sensor clusters had fallen to the ground smoldering, but it was still active and moving, its remaining sensors scanning for activity. I loaded a fresh magazine, entirely of electric dust cartridges, and took a deep breath. The chances of surviving this were slim, but I had to try - for Niji, and for everyone she and I had agreed to defend.

"Wait a moment," a voice said behind me, and I wheeled around. Yang was waiting there, a bloody, burnt hole in her armored top, and a sad smile on her face. She walked up to me, and leaned in to whisper in my ear as she embraced me.

"I'm so sorry."

"Sorry for what?" I asked, confused. There was a strange sharp pain in my side, and the world seemed to be getting hazier and hazier.

My legs fell out from beneath me, but Yang caught me before I hit the ground. Her tear-stained face and her arms around me were the last thing I saw.

**Yang**

* * *

"Mission fucking accomplished," I muttered. "Lost my weapon, almost got executed, interrupted a battle, will be shot on sight by the army out here if we're not careful, sleeping in the middle of nowhere, and we're almost out of rations." I looked at Ruby, stirring lightly in my bedroll but still unconscious. "And I'm probably going to hell."

Nix looked up from her ration can with a raised eyebrow. "You know you saved her life, right?"

"Yeah." I shrugged. "Doesn't changed the fact that I hit her with a tranquilizer in the middle of a battle to drag her back to the capital in cuffs. I don't think I'll win any big-sister points for that."

"What?!" The ration cylinder hit the ground with a muted thud. "Big sister? You mean...?"

"Half-sister!" I corrected, waving my arms defensively. Forgot I hadn't mentioned that little detail... "I haven't seen her since she was ten."

"You're collecting a bounty on your own _half_-sister, then. That's so much better. I'm sure that will be very comforting when they _execute_ her!" Her breath was fast and ragged. "What the hell, Yang? And I've been helping you!"

"Look, is she supposed to get a pass on murdering someone just because she's my sister?"

"No, but that doesn't mean you have to turn her in yourself!"

"Who are you turning in?" Ruby cut in weakly. "My head hurts... and everything's blurry..."

_We'll talk later_, I mouthed to Nix, and brought Ruby a ration can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has stuck with the fic so far. We're about 40% of the way through.


End file.
